Mom Is Finally Reunited With Daughter, 55 Days After Being Separated at the Border

Now that the Trump Administration has been forced to reunite families that have been separated at the border, we’re finally seeing heartbreaking videos of families seeing their children for the very first time.

Angelica Gonzalez-Garcia, a 31-year-old mother from Guatemala, left her home country because she felt that her and her daughter’s life was threatened due to the violence there. In May, she and her daughter attempted to cross the border in Arizona to get to the U.S. to seek asylum and that’s when an immigration agent took her daughter away. She alleges that the agent belittled and shamed her.

BREAKING: Angelica Gozalez-Garcia is about to reunite with her 8-year-old daughter after being separated by ICE in May. Even after Angelica was released from detention, the government had until now refused to reunite them. https://t.co/jK85mFxDOd#FamiliesBelongTogether

“In Guatemala, do they celebrate Mother’s Day?” Gonzalez-Garcia stated in her affidavit according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) who is representing her. “When I answered yes, he said: ‘Then Happy Mother’s Day’ because the next Sunday was Mother’s Day,” Gonzalez-Garcia said as reported by CNN. “I lowered my head so that my daughter would not see the tears forming in my eyes.”

That was the last time she saw her 8-year-old daughter.

On Thursday, 55 days after her daughter was taken from her, Gonzalez-Garcia was finally reunited with her at Logan International Airport in Boston.

The heart wrenching video shows Gonzalez-Garcia’s daughter running to her. The two embrace and cry.

“You know that I love you, right?” Gonzalez-Garcia says to her daughter.

While this reunion is a tender moment, it’s also devastating as so many other kids have yet to reunite with their parents. Even worse, this reunion is only the first step of healing for this mother and daughter. The families and kids have experienced so much trauma as a result of this brutal separation that who knows when they will be able to recover from this.

Araceli Cruz is a freelance journalist living in Savannah, Georgia. She’s covered Latinx topics at Mitú and Vivala, and has written for publications such as Teen Vogue, The Village Voice, GOOD Magazine, and Rolling Stone, among others.